Chapter 16
I went through the morning as if moving under a thin veil smiling at students, collecting their notebooks, answering the principal’s quick questions about the syllabus while a small, persistent unease tugged at the edge of my attention.
It started as a niggle in my chest, the sort you notice when silence falls a beat too long or when a shadow doesn’t belong where light should be.
By the time the second period ended I found myself watching the corridor more than the textbook.
The children filed out with the noisy energy that always made me smile; their small voices filled the air and for a second the world was ordinary again.
I handed back a paper, praised a timid student for effort, and everything felt exactly as it should until it didn’t.
At the staffroom window I paused, cup of chai untouched in my hand. Across the street, leaning against a lamppost as if it were part of him, stood an old man. He watched the school gate with patient poise, the same authoritative posture I’d seen earlier on the lane.
The cane in his hand gleamed dully in the afternoon sun. For a strange moment the world narrowed to the space between my palm and that distant, steady gaze.
I told myself it was nothing. People came and went, elderly men sat and read the paper by the bakery, strangers waited for buses.
But then his head tilted when he saw me look, and I felt the hairs at the back of my neck lift as if someone had whispered my name.
He did not hurry away. He did not read a paper or fuss with his phone. He only watched.
I tried to steady myself with work. I straightened a stack of books, wrote a correction on a test, spoke in a calm voice to a boy who’d forgotten his homework.
I smiled, laughed a little with the other teachers, and for a while the world cooperated. Still, whenever I glanced up the old man’s silhouette remained the same, unblinking presence outside the glass. My calm felt fragile, like a bowl balanced on a ledge.
After the final bell, the school emptied faster than usual.
Kartik found me near the gate, offering the easy small talk he always tried too eager, too careful.
I gave him my practiced gentle answers. He watched me a shade too closely when I met his eyes, asking the work-safe questions with that familiar kindness that never quite erased the guilt behind my lies.
“Everything okay, Ruhi?” he asked softly as the students spilled out around us.
I nodded, though the old man was still there, now closer to the path I would take home. My throat felt suddenly dry. “Yes, just… tired.”
Kartik’s smile faded a fraction perhaps he saw the unevenness in my voice, perhaps he noticed the way the morning had shifted for me. He didn’t press. He only cleared his throat and muttered something about training schedules, letting me move through the gate.
I walked deliberately slow, pretending to tie a stray thread on my dupatta, pretending not to notice. But when I reached the gate my steps slowed of their own accord. The old man had not moved. He tipped his hat not a greeting, not a recognition, but a small, measured gesture and watched me pass.
For reasons I could not explain, my palms grew cold.
When I was safely inside the lane that led to our house, I kept turning to see if he followed. He stayed where he was, a figure rooted to the pavement. Even then he did not look menacing. He looked like a man counting something only he understood.
I wanted, fiercely and irrationally, to believe he would simply go on his way. But the look in his eyes was the same look that belonged to the men in stories I only knew from movies the look of someone cataloguing, memorizing, waiting.
I forced myself to breathe. The rational part of me argued he was only an old stranger who happened to be watching the school. The part of me whose nights had been hollowed by secrets suspected otherwise.
By the time I reached home, the unease had settled into my bones.
Lorenzo greeted me at the door with his usual easy smile, the sight of him a warm relief like a hand on a frozen place.
Yet even as I let that comfort wash over me, the memory of the man outside the gate followed, and insistent, like a new bruise I could not ignore.
I told myself I would watch, and not worry.
I told myself I would tell Lorenzo, and together we would decide what to do.
But beneath the words I felt a rawer truth: someone had found a way to reach me through the world I had tried to keep small and ordinary.
And whether I acknowledged it or not, the life I had woven with soft moments and careful lies was beginning to tremble.
At Midnight, after Ruhi fell asleep, i gently get up from the bed trying my best not to wake Ruhi up.
When she reached home i could tell by her face that something is wrong. And i couldn't shake the feeling off .
I stepped out into the night, the cool air brushing against my skin as I walked through the silent halls of the estate. My footsteps echoed faintly until I reached the study, where the faint glow of a lamp seeped under the door. I already knew who was inside before I opened it. My grandfather.
He sat in the chair as though he owned not only the room, but every corner of my life. His sharp eyes, aged yet unyielding, landed on me with the same weight they always had the gaze of the man who raised me, molded me, turned me from a boy into someone the world could never bend.
“Lorenzo,” he greeted, his voice calm, steady, but carrying a shadow I had learned never to ignore. “It’s time you come back to Italy.”
I froze at the threshold, my jaw tightening.
I hadn’t heard those words from him in months after that accident, but they carried the same command as when I was a child.
He had been my protector, my teacher, my only family when the world had stripped me of everything else.
And yet now, there was steel in his tone, something that felt less like guidance and more like a demand.
“I have a life here,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. “Responsibilities. Ruhi.”
At the mention of her name, his eyes narrowed, as though she were nothing but an obstacle in a plan already decided. “That girl…” he paused, choosing his words carefully. “She makes you weak, Lorenzo. And weakness is a luxury you cannot afford. Italy needs you. Our people need you.”
I clenched my fists at my sides, anger rising in my chest, but beneath it was something far sharper fear. Not of him, but of what he might do. My grandfather was a good man once, a man who believed in honor and family, but tonight, I saw a side of him I had never faced.
“You’re blackmailing me,” I said quietly, realization hitting like ice. “You wouldn’t have come here otherwise.”
He leaned forward, his lined hands clasped together, his expression unreadable. “I raised you, Lorenzo. I gave you everything. And now, I’m asking you for one thing in return. Come back. Or you will lose far more than you think.”
The threat hung in the air, heavy and unspoken, but I understood it well enough. For the first time in years, I felt the invisible chains of blood and loyalty tightening around me.
And as I stood there, caught between the man who made me and the woman who had unknowingly become my salvation, I knew this night had changed everything.
"Go back Nonno " ( grandfather in italian language, I used Translation) I said to him standing my ground.
"Fine... I'll go back. But remember one thing Lorenzo De Romano. You're the heir of this mafia Family. And I'll get you back" My grandfather said before turning his back to me .
(Do you like this chapter? If yes then please drop a Vote and comment your opinion on it.
And please treat all the Chapters equally.
I have been noticing that some chapters have 60+ vote others have 40+ and some others have 50+ .
I atleast expect 70+ vote on each chapter.
But I think I got silent readers more. I mean 10k Reads and not even 1k Vote?
I'm so disappointed at this point )